“Sun Tzu. The Art of War.”
“War? That doesn’t seem like a healthy way to view a divorce.”
“It’s about strategy and knowing your enemy. Sun Tzu was a Chinese military general. The Art of War is a masterpiece on strategy. You should be interested in it because it’s more about taking advantage of the psychological state of your enemy than in applying force.”
“So you’re telling me you’re a disciple of an ancient Chinese military general?”
“I think his ideas have relevance, yes.” He finished the food on his plate. “So if you looked me up then you probably already know everything there is to know about me. And I still know next to nothing about you.”
Her heart beat a little faster. “What do you want to know?”
“Why did you run from me in the park the other day?”
“You said we weren’t going to talk about that.”
“No, what I said was that we’ll forget about the kiss for now.” He added another slice of cheese to his plate. “I’m not asking you about the kiss. I’m asking you why you ran. You’re careful. Reserved. Cautious. You don’t allow people to get too close. I would have said that has to do with being abandoned at an impressionable age, but if that’s not the case then your reaction has to have its roots in something more recent.”
“Or maybe I didn’t feel the chemistry.”
His gaze met hers. “I think it’s because you felt the chemistry that you ran. It wasn’t because you didn’t feel, but because you felt too much.”
“Hey, I’m the psychologist.”
He put his plate down slowly. “Who hurt you, Molly?”
Her mouth dried. “What makes you think someone hurt me?”
“You live alone, your best friend is your dog and you avoid relationships. Those are the actions of someone who has been hurt. Badly hurt. And now you protect yourself. You do whatever it takes to make sure your heart doesn’t get broken again. Am I right?”
She could let him think that. She could end the conversation now.
Or she could be honest, and end the relationship.
She stared at her plate for a moment, weighing the options even though she’d known from the start that she couldn’t be less than honest.
Acknowledging that, she lifted her head. “You have the first part right. I live alone, Valentine is my best friend and I avoid romantic entanglements. But my heart wasn’t broken. You’ve got it the wrong way round,” she said slowly so that there was no misunderstanding. “I wasn’t the one who was hurt. I was the one doing the hurting. I’m not the one with the broken heart. I’m the one who does the breaking. Every time.”
Daniel stared at her. “What do you mean, ‘every time’?”
“My first proper relationship was when I was eighteen. College boyfriend. He fell in love, I didn’t. I ended it because I knew I was never going to feel the way he wanted me to and I thought it would only make it worse if we prolonged it. He was so devastated he dropped out. His parents wrote me a letter telling me that I’d ruined his future.” She could have elaborated, but she stuck to the basic facts. “After that I picked someone older. I met him in a nightclub when I was with friends. He told me he was only interested in having a good time. I believed him. Maybe he even meant it at the time.”
“He fell in love with you, too?”
“He proposed to me after six weeks with the biggest diamond you’ve seen in your life. He took out a loan to buy it.”
Daniel raised an eyebrow. “You seem to have quite an effect on men.”
“Adam was great. Really great—” She swallowed. “In theory we had everything going for us. After my experience in college, I only dated men who should have been a perfect match because I didn’t want to risk hurting anyone else. Maybe that sounds a little sterile and contrived, but it wasn’t. I was simply doing for myself what I’d always done for other people. But still the relationship didn’t work out. And believe me, I tried. I tried so hard to fall in love with him. I really worked at it. You have no idea.”
“You make it sound as if you were trying to pass the bar exam, not fall in love.” His tone was mild and she gave a little shrug.
“I accepted that falling in love probably wasn’t something that would come naturally to me. Because of my DNA.”
“Your DNA?”
“My mother wasn’t good at commitment.”
“I’m not a scientist, but I’m pretty sure that’s not genetic.”